THE KEY to the Odyssey

[00:00:00]I want to share with you the key to understanding one of my favorite [clears throat] stories, the Odyssey. So, in case you read the book or didn't understand the book or if you're going to go see the movie, here's how you understand what's going on. There's a cultural understanding that we might miss as modern people. But, it's really simple once you see it. The Greek word is xenia.

[00:00:24]This is a complex topic that really encapsulates a few ideas. There's no direct English um translation. Hospitality isn't quite it. It's like Southern hospitality but on steroids and with divine sanction and established social expectations.

[00:00:45]And to defy this, it causes problems as we'll see. You can boil it down to the responsibilities of a host to his guests, his or her guests, or a guest to the host. You'll see in Greek mythology a man will travel and will go somewhere, you know, that he's not from and he'll knock on someone's door, he'll show up, and the expectation is that they will take him in, provide a place for this man to stay, and provide food and hospitality to this person. In fact, you'll see that when they show up, they're often fed before they even are asked who they are, whose son they are, or what what family they're from.

[00:01:25]Because the expectation is I'm going to take care of you even if you're the son of an an old enemy.

[00:01:31]But, the guest also has responsibilities to the host to basically be hospitable, be kind, be respectful of this person's time, property, resources, food, family.

[00:01:43]When you see this, so much more of the Odyssey, parts of the Iliad, and even a bit of the Bible will make sense to you.

[00:01:51]So, keep in mind that word xenia. Now, Odysseus, when you see him, I think about book five, The first four chapters or books, if you will, uh begin with his son, Telemachus.

[00:02:04]And his they call it the Telemachy. It's basically the Telemachy, that is Telemachus his own uh mini story before you get to the Odyssey or journey of Odysseus.

[00:02:18]And you'll see him talking to veterans of the Trojan War. You'll see him talking to Nestor and to Mentor, if I recall. That's where we get the name Mentor.

[00:02:29]And you'll see Telemachus in a dilemma.

[00:02:34]His mother is a beautiful woman, Penelope, still lives in their palace in Ithaca, this beautiful land in Greece.

[00:02:42]And she's got a lot of suitors there with her. And obviously they're trying to court her, whether or not she wants to be courted. She doesn't. The dilemma that this puts her in is because she is obligated to Odysseus, if he is in fact alive. They don't have cell phones back then. The cell phone service wasn't too good.

[00:02:58]If he is in fact alive, other people have come back from the the war, by the way. He's been gone for decades.

[00:03:05]And if he is alive, she's obligated to him.

[00:03:09]It would cause tremendous problems if she marries someone else if he is still alive. However, if he's dead and she does not take a suitor, that also is causing problems. First, you'll see that Telemachus understands xenia or his responsibilities as a host because Athena, this beautiful goddess, comes to him and basically disguises a man and Telemachus shows her hospitality, him, he thinks, hospitality.

[00:03:39]He knows the rules, the expectations of xenia.

[00:03:43]And the problem is that Telemachus isn't fully grown.

[00:03:48]He's got to be at least 20 years old, right? His dad's been gone for about that long.

[00:03:53]So, he's around that age, possibly older, but he hasn't really crossed the threshold into manhood.

[00:04:00]So, he understands the social mores, but he hasn't taken uh responsibility for his household and all the burdens really falling on poor Penelope. She's got to deal with all these jackasses. But, here's what's interesting, I think, is you'll find these suitors are abusing the rules of the expectations of xenia.

[00:04:23]They are abusing this household. They're harassing Penelope, the wife of King Odysseus.

[00:04:31]They're harassing Telemachus. They are not respecting the resources, their food.

[00:04:36]There's an older man who is, I think, a prophet who mentions an omen that Odysseus is going to come back.

[00:04:42]Someone stands up and says, "Yeah, that's just These are just birds.

[00:04:46]Shut up, old man.

[00:04:47]And we're going to do what we want here.

[00:04:49]We don't We don't fear you or anything else here."

[00:04:52]This shows extreme misunderstanding or disrespect for the social mores, religion, uh some sort of disrespect towards the gods, the wife of their king. This The elderly were respected in that culture.

[00:05:07]They're disrespecting him.

[00:05:08]I think the reason for this is a professor in The Great Courses brought this up.

[00:05:14]I forget her name, but she's She's a really good She does a really good like 6-hour course on the Odyssey. And she brings up this is essentially a land without fathers. Their fathers were carried They were at war with Troy.

[00:05:28]And on Ithaca, sadly, their dads didn't come home. So, most of these guys A couple of them have dads. Many of them grew up with absent fathers, without dads.

[00:05:39]And you see this. They don't have respect.

[00:05:43]They don't respect religion or society or the norms or the expectations or the elderly or even women.

[00:05:50]They're disrespectful. You see social decay in the absence of the king and the absence of fathers.

[00:05:58]And so they are not living in accordance with xenia.

[00:06:04]Now, in book five, I think it is, we finally catch up to Odysseus and he's sitting on the beach and he's looking out at the ocean and he's essentially crying. I think feminists get this wrong about Odysseus.

[00:06:16]He is captured by a goddess.

[00:06:18]He cannot defy Calypso. He's a mortal, she is not.

[00:06:22]So, if feminists sometimes I might make a video about this, but some feminists will spin this as here's this straight white male traveling around just banging all the the hot women while his poor wife at home is, you know, just faithfully waiting for him all helpless. They're not really quite understanding it. Uh this is a pagan story.

[00:06:39]It's not Christian. It's pre-Christian.

[00:06:42]Um you know, Christ doesn't want you to commit fornication or adultery, period, full stop. But, in this case, Odysseus really doesn't have much of a choice in the story.

[00:06:54]If he were to defy the goddess, it would uh not end well for him or his house.

[00:07:01]Uh you know, [clears throat] Poseidon already doesn't like him and that's not done that's not done him any favors.

[00:07:07]So, she asks him. He he longs for home.

[00:07:09]He's crying.

[00:07:11]Hey, you know what? You want to stay here with me?

[00:07:13]You don't find me more attractive than your mortal wife, isn't she? Isn't Penelope a mortal? I'm a goddess.

[00:07:19]How could you not find me as overwhelmingly beautiful? You want to be with me, right?

[00:07:23]Uh little bit of toxic femininity, if you will.

[00:07:26]Odysseus, being clever, doesn't ever say Penelope is more beautiful than you.

[00:07:33]Someone did choose a a mortal woman over a goddess. That did not end well for them.

[00:07:38]Son of Laertes and seed of Zeus, resourceful Odysseus, are you still also eager to go back to your own house, the land of your fathers? I wish you well, however you do it, but if you only knew in your heart how many hardships you were fated to undergo before getting back to your country, you would stay here with me and be the lord of this household and be an immortal."

[00:07:58]Which is a crazy thing to promise.

[00:08:00]Uh that's a major theme in Greek mythology.

[00:08:03]Um there is I found out that there is from this professor, by the way, there is one um person who was gifted immortality but not the gift of agelessness. So, they aged they lived and aged forever.

[00:08:17]It was a curse, not a blessing.

[00:08:19]Things have consequences.

[00:08:21]So, Odysseus wants to go home.

[00:08:24]"For all your longing once more to look on that wife for whom you are pining all your days here, she's jealous. You're pining all your days for this woman.

[00:08:32]And yet I think I can claim that I am not her inferior either in build or stature, since it is not likely that mortal woman can challenge a goddess for build and beauty."

[00:08:43]Then resourceful Odysseus spoke in turn and answered her, "Goddess and queen, do not be angry with me.

[00:08:49]I myself know all that you say is true, and that circumspect Penelope can never match the impression you make for beauty and stature.

[00:08:58]She is a mortal after all, and you are immortal and ageless.

[00:09:03]But even so, what I want in all my days I pine for is to go back to my house and to see the day of my homecoming."

[00:09:11]So, Odysseus doesn't res- disrespect her hospitality, but he is essentially enslaved.

[00:09:17]He cleverly says, "I want to go home." A major theme in Greek mythology.

[00:09:24]However, he leaves and he crash lands essentially onto this new land.

[00:09:30]And how does he distinguish between in Odysseus's mind, in the Homeric mind, between the savage and the civilized.

[00:09:39]When he lands, he says, "Is are these people going to be savage or are they going to be hospitable to foreigners, to strangers?

[00:09:48]Will they take me in and help me and be kind to me, give me a place to stay, help me get cleaned up, get some food?"

[00:09:54]Cuz by the time he gets there, he's not in good shape.

[00:09:56]That's the distinction between the civilized and the savage. Keep that in mind. In other words, do they have do they understand xenia? The Homeric poem describe Polyphemus. This is what I have an issues with uh Emily Wilson's take on all this. She tries to soften she tries to to to read her views into the Homeric story a bit.

[00:10:18]I think it's over exaggerated on the internet, but she does do it. Polyphemus doesn't welcome them and show them hospitality. He eats them. He eats the men.

[00:10:26]He doesn't feed them. He eats them because he's not civilized. He's a savage.

[00:10:31]He's somehow less than human.

[00:10:33]There are giants in the book that I think might be in No One's Movie, which might be a critique I have if I go see it, because they're presented in the trailer at least as having medieval you know, refined armor as a civilization, but in the books, these are less than human people.

[00:10:52]They are they don't understand xenia or civilization. You'll see themes like this in the Epic of Gilgamesh with Enkidu or the king in the Bible who goes becomes goes down to all fours as he goes mad and acts like an animal.

[00:11:05]less than human. He's returning to savagery. All right, so now think about the Trojan War. What started that?

[00:11:12]Well, the Trojans were hanging out with the Spartans. They were showing proper xenia, but Paris did not.

[00:11:21]He took the man's wife, this most beautiful woman in the world, and he abducted her.

[00:11:26]Now, Menelaus seems to think that maybe she wanted to go with the Trojans. She says, "No, no, I want it to stay with the Greeks."

[00:11:33]Uh kind of a debate there.

[00:11:36]But, the point is, they abused the xenia, the hospitality of these other Greeks. So, come in here and I'll show you the Logos Bible Software.

[00:11:47]And I'll zoom in on the word hospitality.

[00:11:50]And that word is philoxenia, the love or the hospitality, basically. Think of the city Philadelphia.

[00:12:00]City of brotherly love.

[00:12:02]And then, we've entertained angels unawares. And that is xenizo, from the word xenia. Interestingly enough, the Bible says that some people have entertained angels unawares, so make sure you're hospitable to strangers.

[00:12:16]And it's interesting that in the Odyssey, Telemachus entertains a goddess, basically, in the Greek view, Athena, unawares. So, you don't have to let strangers in your house. The world works a little bit differently today, but try to be hospitable to people today.

[00:12:30]That'll make the world a little bit warmer.

[00:12:34]I think that's a good thing.

[00:12:35]Hope you know your life matters. Take care of yourself. God bless.